Selects: The Cleveland Torso Murders

During the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland’s most vulnerable and destitute residents were prey for one of history’s most horrific serial killers. The killer’s identity remains a mystery to this day. Josh and Chuck take you through what's known in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:02Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. It's me, Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen our Cleveland Torso Murders episode from May 2021. Once in a while, we do some true crime episodes, and in my opinion, this might be our best one ever. It's a semi-little-known series of gruesome killings that became an engrossing story with a lot to keep up with. I should probably mention there's a lot of frank talk about some really grisly stuff in here, so be forewarned. Hope you enjoy it as much as one can enjoy this kind of stuff.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:47Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. Jerry's out there somewhere with a magnifying glass and a toothpick. We don't know what the toothpick's for, but this is Stuff You Should Know.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Yes, content warning episode, everybody. This is one of our, I was about to say rare, they're fairly rare, but one of our true crime episodes that is very grisly.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  Gruesome.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Gruesome, but took place in the 1930s. So there's something about old and gruesome that makes it a little more palatable for me.

• 2:22Josh Clark?

  Totally. I don't know why, but you're absolutely right.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Time, I guess, you know?

• 2:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, time heals all wounds, including the torso murders.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Yes, it does. Well, it heals all wounds except for some of the things that happened in the torso murders, because you can't come back from that.

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  It's pretty crazy. You were familiar with the torso murders already, right?

• 2:41Speaker 02

  I had heard of these, and the more I read about them, the more I was shocked that there wasn't a good period movie about this.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, absolutely. But if you haven't heard of the torso killer, that's fine. You're definitely not alone. A lot of people haven't, which is kind of surprising, because these are unsolved murders. There were a lot of them, and, you know, they took place in the background of a city that was like driven into a frenzy by this ghastly serial murderer, who continued their murders despite this extraordinarily large, you know, manhunt to try to find them. An unsuccessful manhunt still to this day.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it has all the makings of a good movie. It's got a, and we'll reveal who this person is. We'll hang on to it for a second, but it's got a famous investigator.

• 3:32Josh Clark?

  Oh, oh, sorry, yes. He definitely was the famous investigator.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Oh, you thought I meant who the murderer was?

• 3:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, you've got some false starts. You've got some Coen Brothers-esque whimsy with the dog discovery.

• 3:48Josh Clark?

  I thought you'd like that.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did like that. And, um, yeah, it has all the makings of a great movie in a cool period setting, which was Depression-era, 1930s Cleveland, Ohio.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  Which is almost indistinguishable from current-day 2021 Cleveland, Ohio.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Come on, we love Cleveland.

• 4:05Josh Clark?

  Hey, man, I'm from Toledo. I can totally bag on Cleveland and Detroit. That's my birthright.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  That is your birthright. So let's go back to September of 1934. When a woman's torso is washed up on the shore of Lake Erie, her legs are amputated below the knee. There is no head, which is why I said torso and arms.

• 4:28Josh Clark?

  It's a suspicious way to find a body.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  A very suspicious way. She was never identified. They called her the Lady of the Lake. And this was just sort of the beginnings. Nothing was put together at this point because it would be two years before any other murders took place. And that they finally sort of put together that the Lady of the Lake was perhaps victim zero. Really victim one, but they called her victim zero of who would become known as the torso murderer or the the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury.

• 5:01Josh Clark?

  Yes, Kingsbury Run. And like you said, it'd be about two years before they started to connect the dots. But in that time, between the time the Lady of the Lake was found, about a year passed. And then all of a sudden, two more bodies were found. And now, all of a sudden, because two bodies were found together, this really started to capture people's attention. The Lady of the Lake, it was a weird thing. It was a terrible thing to find, but it was singular. This was, you know, like by definition, not singular. Finding two bodies at once that were both dismembered. And they were found in the area of Kingsbury Run, which is where the Mad Butcher takes his name.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  That's right. They were both men in this case. They were.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  They were castrated. They were also decapitated, which would become sort of a signature of the decapitation and or any kind of dismembering, really, would become the signature hallmark of this murderer. And it's interesting in that victim one of these two men was actually one of the only ones that they got a fairly positive ID for. They actually got some fingerprints and it matched a man named Edward Andressi. And he was sort of a petty thief that had, you know, the police had brought in before. So he was believed to be gay. And this, if he was, you know, which all accounts should say that he was. This was at a time when, in the 1930s, certainly it was still illegal.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  And it was also listed as a mental disorder in the, what's it called? Not the DMV.

• 6:38Josh Clark?

  DSM.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  DSM.

• 6:41Josh Clark?

  The DMV, the DMV didn't look too highly on it either.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  No, that's right. So he, I think, was one of only two that was ever even positively identified of what would end up being probably 13, maybe 12 murders.

• 6:58Josh Clark?

  Yes. And again, these guys were found together, not together like they were within, you know, a very short distance of one another. So they were found virtually at the same time. And whenever you find, you know, a body missing its head, that is attention grabbing. And when you find two bodies both missing their heads, that really starts to get the press's juices running. And like we said, these were found around Kingsbury Run. And Kingsbury Run is basically like an old riverbed that cuts through, I believe, the west side of Cleveland. No, I'm sorry. I think the east side of Cleveland, down to the Coiahooga River. And it was basically like the place where all of the

• 7:41Josh Clark?

  oil companies and all of the heavy industry along the river and along the lake would dump all of their waste. The city put a sewer in there. It was just meant to be kind of like a wasteland, like a literal wasteland. And it kind of stayed that way until the Depression hit. And by the time the Depression hit, things were so bad that people were looking to basically live wherever they could for free, and they started taking up residence in Kingsbury Run. So by the time the Kingsbury Run murders, the torso murders started, this was like a full-fledged, full-swing shanty town, basically, a Great Depression-era Hoover town is what they called them.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So it was a grim scene down there anyway. Certainly the fringes of society, during the course of the investigation, there were accusations of the press that they weren't working as hard as they needed to because these were people on the fringes of society and sort of forgotten about. And I think one of the other people identified was a few months later, in January 1936, when they found the body of Flo Palillo. Florence Palillo was a waitress and bartender and sex worker, who was discovered, once again, dismembered, wrapped in newspaper and a couple of bushel baskets. And then about a week and a half later, found other parts of her body. So she was sort of...

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Found in, it's very grisly, but found in pieces over the course of a week and a half in different places.

• 9:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, right. So, so far, as far as anybody can tell, we're up to three and possibly four victims, if you include the lady of the lake. But it wasn't until the following June, about six months after Flo Polillo was discovered. Because again, remember, these people were, they actually lived on the fringe of society. So, just like today, just like Robert Pickton, the pig farmer from Vancouver, so many other serial killers find their victims in like the, I guess, the lowest stations of society because they're the most vulnerable. They have the least protection. And that's kind of what was going on. That's why it took so many victims for the press to finally be like, okay, there's something really going

• 9:55Josh Clark?

  on here. And finally, in June, I believe of 1936, victim number four, as far as canonical victims go, but possibly the fifth victim, was discovered. His head was found first by two boys who were playing hooky and fishing along the Koyahoga.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Can you imagine that, man?

• 10:14Josh Clark?

  No, I can't, because they found like a balled up pair of trousers and I guess grabbed them and found that there was something in it. And when they opened it up, it was the head of a man in his twenties. It's never been identified, like so many of these victims.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, and not to trivialize any of this, but again, that stuff is very ripe for movie making.

• 10:36Josh Clark?

  Totally. This whole thing is, and it really is surprising that no one's done this yet.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Like you wouldn't, you know, you would write something like that in a screenplay, and this actually happened. It's so grisly.

• 10:46Josh Clark?

  I didn't see, I haven't read it, but there's a graphic novel, and maybe it's a series called Torso, that is about all this. And I'm guessing that would probably be a pretty good basis for the movie.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so victim four, they were making great efforts to find out who this man was. So they actually, the police circulated a photo of his face and made a death mask. If you don't know what a death mask is, I encourage you to go listen to our episode on death masks.

• 11:16Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  It's basically what you would think. It's a recreation of this man's head. And they put this thing along with a tattoo map. He had tattoos all over himself. An illustrated map of his tattoos in this death mask on display. At the Great Lakes Exposition of 1936. Where, you know, 100,000 people could walk. I mean, it was a smart idea in one way because they had a, you know, could blast it out in the best way possible. To try and identify who this person was, but it was also. Again, like something from a movie, these people going to an exposition. All of a sudden are walking by these, this tattoo map and the death mask of this man. And I'm sure the question came up like, well, why is it?

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Where's the rest of his body? Why didn't they just show pictures of the tattoos?

• 12:04Josh Clark?

  They're like, stop asking questions. Do you know the guy or not? No, go get some ice cream.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 12:09Josh Clark?

  Move along, nothing to see here. But yeah, despite that, you know, very public. Search for an identification. He was never, still has never been identified. And his tattoos were really, he had people's names tattooed on him. He had a cartoon character named Jigs tattooed on him. So this guy. You know, you could see his face. They had all those tattoos and he still has never been identified. But his, his discovery, and I think the very public, like the cops circulated a photo of his head. On a gurney in the morgue. At first, before they made the death mask, among other. Police agencies around the area, and I'm sure to the press as well. So it was. Kind of public, even though it was kind of quiet, but it got the press's attention.

• 12:54Josh Clark?

  And the press started to connect the dots and all of a sudden we now were connecting the lady of the lake. To this latest guy and all of the other ones as well. And it became very clear that there was what they call the mad butcher. Of Kingsbury Run on the loose. In Cleveland and no one had any idea who it was or when or if they were ever going to stop.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there were seven more victims over the next two years. Uh, victim eight were skeletal remains, uh, but they did think they identified this person as Rose Wallace, uh, woman in her 40s. Uh, she had gone missing about a year earlier and there was quick lime use to decompose this body. Uh, and this one interestingly had evidence of a more of a clumsy dismemberment. Um, to me, this one stands out a little bit as one that possibly might not be a victim and could have been misattributed, uh, to the, to the mad butcher. That's just my personal feeling. I don't, I don't know if anyone else is saying this, but it's the one that stands out to me as being slightly different.

• 14:01Josh Clark?

  Same as, same, same to me.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:03Josh Clark?

  She, uh, the, the killer clearly lacked a dismemberment plan in that case.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Is that a band?

• 14:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Are they good?

• 14:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they were really good. They were, uh, maybe math rock?

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:18Josh Clark?

  I think they were.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Nice word.

• 14:21Josh Clark?

  At the very least, they were alternative.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Uh, victim nine was, uh, had his heart removed. Um, victim 10 had morphine in her system. And I think they're, they're not quite sure how they all died. I think at one point they thought most of them died by the decapitation, but some were found with, uh, their blood completely drained from their body. Like I said, this one woman had morphine in her system.

• 14:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Uh, which could make sense. We'll get to something else later on of a potential victim that never happened where drugs might've been a factor. But, um, you know, it's, it's sort of all, you know, there were men, there were women, there were black people, there were white people. There wasn't any real rhyme or reason, it seemed like, aside from the fact that they were probably culled from this area of Ohio.

• 15:08Josh Clark?

  Yes. Uh, in the fact that, you know, the first two men were emasculated, um, that there were women involved too, that somebody's heart had been ripped out. Like there was, there was clearly a sexual element to the whole thing, which made the idea that they were men and woman victims, um, very confounding. You just don't normally see that in a sex killer. You, you see one. Or the other, and it's usually the

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:33Josh Clark?

  sex that the person is oriented to, um, or the victims. And then, you know, just to kind of, to, to cap that point off, the killer left victims 11 and 12 within a few yards of one another, um, on a dump, uh, like a trash dump. And one was a woman, victim 11 was a woman and victim 12 was a man.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Should we take a break?

• 15:55Josh Clark?

  We should because Cleveland doesn't know it at the time, but those of us looking through, uh, uh, the, looking backward through history can tell you that this was the last canonical victims in August of 1938. So the killer, as far as anybody knows, is done.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  That's right. And most of the grisly stuff is out of the way and we'll be back to reveal the famous investigator right after this.

• 16:38Josh Clark?

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• 17:45Josh Clark?

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• 18:01Speaker 02

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• 18:18Josh Clark?

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• 18:43Josh Clark?

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• 19:04Speaker 02

  How's that for a tease?

• 19:06Josh Clark?

  It was, "I can't take it anymore, Chuck. Please, please. Who is it?"

• 19:10Speaker 02

  It's my favorite thing, when you play coy. It was Mr. Elliot Ness, very famous for being the head of The Untouchables, for putting Al Capone behind bars.

• 19:23Josh Clark?

  Good friend of Sean Connery's?

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Very good friend.

• 19:27Josh Clark?

  Oh, that was great.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  That wasn't very good, because to do Connery-

• 19:30Josh Clark?

  You don't bring your knife to a gunfight, you bring a gun, you dummy.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that was the line. If you're going to do Connery, well, you gotta have an "es" in there.

• 19:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  But there was no "es"s.

• 19:40Josh Clark?

  I did that, didn't I? I thought that was, I thought I nailed it.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  There aren't no "es"s in that sentence.

• 19:46Josh Clark?

  Right, they're implied that I would have done that had there been us.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  Don't bring a knife to a gun, Donch. How's that?

• 19:54Josh Clark?

  Right. You bring a gun, you're a jummer.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  All right. Back to the serious stuff. Elliot Ness was the, after that work in, what was that, Chicago, I think?

• 20:06Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  That was, he became the alcohol investigator in charge of the alcohol tax unit for Northern Ohio in August of 34. And then the Republican mayoral candidate, Harold Burton, who would go on to win, said, you know what, Ness, you're a famous guy. I like the cut of your jib. Let me make you, in December 1935, the safety director for Cleveland, and let me nudge you towards this outstanding case that we have.

• 20:37Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, when he was hired, the case wasn't quite clear that it was a big old case. He came in just after, like, a couple of months after Victims One and Two were found, and just a couple of weeks before Flo Polillo was found. So it wasn't evident that, that there was a serial murderer on the loose. But that also means that Elliot Ness came in right at the beginning of this thing. So he was the public safety director for it. He became the face of the frustrated police effort to capture the torso killer.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Right. Although the lead investigator, what was that guy's name?

• 21:16Josh Clark?

  Peter Marillo.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was, he was, I don't know about obsessed, but it became sort of his main focus of work, was to tirelessly find out who this murderer was. And I assume that, it's weird, because I really don't know what a safety director was. I don't think, is that even still a thing?

• 21:37Josh Clark?

  Uh, yeah, I think there is a public safety director position still there. They basically are in charge of the police department, the fire department.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 21:45Josh Clark?

  Basically, all that stuff. You're, they're the head of that. They're like, they're probably the liaison between the mayor and those services.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  But not the guardian angels, because they do what they want to do.

• 21:55Josh Clark?

  Hey, man, they're staying on their own, too.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Uh, the coroner, A.J. Pierce of the case, uh, I think he was the first coroner on the first case, said, you know what we need to do? We need to get together, we need to have a little summit and start sharing information. I'm gonna call it the torso clinic, which was interesting.

• 22:12Josh Clark?

  I don't know if he did or the press did.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, either way, because the press was very much involved in this whole run, obviously. But, uh, at this conference is where he first put forward a profile, which was, this is someone who would not stand out in Kingsbury one, uh, run. Someone who knew the area, could blend in, uh, somebody, you know, we think it's a man who is a powerful man, because they need to be able to, you know, it takes a lot of work to dismember a body and to haul these bodies around and drop them off in different places. And we think he also might have some anatomical knowledge, not saying that he's necessarily a doctor or a surgeon, uh, kind of like the Jack the Ripper thing, but, but this, this

• 22:55Speaker 02

  person clearly, clearly knows their way around, uh, a knife and a scalpel.

• 23:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because, I mean, if you really closely examine a body and like, look at the places where, you know, the body was separated with the knife, you can find hesitancy marks, you can find the hacking, um, there's all sorts of clues and telltale signs, and apparently this guy had a lot of confidence and had a lot of skill or knowledge about anatomy. So like you said, maybe not a doctor, but at the very least, a very skilled butcher who had studied human anatomy, um, before, but I, eventually, they finally were like, this is probably some sort of doctor.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think they eventually learned that most of the victims died within a few day, uh, a few days of being discovered, and most were moved, except for victim five, where they found a bloodbath, you know, that was, this didn't happen at the other crime scenes, it was virtually no blood to be found. And in fact, I think one was completely drained of blood.

• 23:54Josh Clark?

  Many were.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Oh, really? So that, I mean, that takes, I don't know if that happened naturally. Just because of the the nature of of dismemberment, or that it was a purposeful thing, but only one body was found kind of clearly murdered there.

• 24:10Josh Clark?

  Right. So, um, yeah, I think the the fact that the blood wasn't on the scene, and it wasn't in the body any longer, means that it had to go somewhere. So that, the fact that they were dismembered, um, and the the and packaged, I mean, like, a lot of them were found, you know, um, the one I didn't unidentified tattooed man, his head was wrapped in trousers, but other peoples were wrapped in newspaper or brown paper, like they were meat. Um, some one was was put in a makeshift box. Um, there was, there was a lot of time dedicated to the the um, dismemberment of these bodies, and that that leaves a lot of evidence, and you need a place where you're not going to be interrupted.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:54Josh Clark?

  That's not easy to come by. So that became a really, like, big point is, you know, we were pretty sure that this person is is snatching victims from the uh, from the Kingsbury Run area. Um, but where are they committing these acts? And they tried to find that that place as much as they tried to find the killer.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that would be a big clue if they had some murder room, uh, Dexter style.

• 25:19Josh Clark?

  Sure. That's a dead giveaway every time.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Uh, that's coming back, by the way. I don't know if you ever watched Dexter.

• 25:26Josh Clark?

  What do you mean it's coming back?

• 25:27Speaker 02

  They're bringing Dexter back, man.

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  With the original, like, Michael C. Hall?

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 25:32Josh Clark?

  No.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Yes, they are, indeed. And I I have mixed feelings because we loved that show for a long time, but it is

• 25:37Josh Clark?

  Until the end.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  It is one of the Shark Jumpier shows of all time.

• 25:41Josh Clark?

  It's cra- it's like the shark itself jumped a shark.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 25:46Josh Clark?

  It's insane. It's amazing.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean, I love Michael C. Hall, though. We we're just now finishing Six Feet Under again, so.

• 25:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  I'm always happy to see him again, but, uh, I'll give it a go.

• 25:55Josh Clark?

  Did you see Cold in July?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Hmm, no, what is that?

• 25:59Josh Clark?

  It's it's a little bit like a Straw Dogs type story. Um, but it's, he's like having to battle Don Johnson. It's just really, like, if you want, I know, it's weird casting, but if you want to just experience, like, a constant, you know, mid to low level dread for two hours, like, just go ahead and watch that. It's well done in that respect.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Or watch The Lighthouse.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  It's probably better.

• 26:24Josh Clark?

  God, it's so good. Let's just stop talking about this and talk about the lighthouse for the rest of the time.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  All right, so Peter Morello, who, like we said, was a lead detective, he's sort of obsessed with this thing. He starts not only focusing on this land down by the river, but, oh, I didn't mean that. But that's what it was. But he started focusing on the railroads and these hobos.

• 26:50Josh Clark?

  The what?

• 26:50Speaker 02

  The railroads.

• 26:51Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  You know where trains run on?

• 26:54Josh Clark?

  Sure, yeah. I just never heard it pronounced the way you did the first time.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Railroad?

• 26:58Josh Clark?

  The railroads. It was hilarious. Hey, I gotta lighten this up somehow. We're talking about dismembered torsos.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  I know, exactly. So he started looking in these boxcars and I don't, I mean, is hobo an offensive word? Can you still say that?

• 27:13Josh Clark?

  I don't think so. I think it's a point of pride, a term of pride.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  For people who still ride the rails?

• 27:20Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Okay. So he's still out there doing his thing. At this press conference, Elliot Ness ends up holding a meeting with the head of Scientific Investigation Bureau. His name was David Cowles, and an editor of the Cleveland Press. So this is a big deal. They're actually getting the press involved at this point.

• 27:41Josh Clark?

  Right, but secretly, this wasn't a press conference. This is like a secret meeting.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, not a press conference at all. This was very much in secret. But he's involving the press and they said, here's what we're gonna do. Ness says, let's, you go and pick out eight tough guys that can go undercover, that know a lot of bad guys in Cleveland and have all those connections. We'll give them the police support they need and we'll fund them. How did they fund them? With the press's money? What does that even mean?

• 28:07Josh Clark?

  I don't, I think that like maybe the owners of the newspapers chipped in, like the wealthy owners chipped in quietly to pay for this stuff off of the books. That's my impression of what this happened.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  And whoever chipped in the most got to break the story, I wonder?

• 28:21Josh Clark?

  But, well, no, I think at the same time, it was a technique for bringing the press into the fold so that there weren't outsiders drumming up trouble for the cops anymore.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 28:32Josh Clark?

  Cleveland Press really made the, they didn't make the police look bad. They pointed out just how badly the police were handling this or ineffectively. Which is not to say that the police were not trying really, really hard. Supposedly, I saw a figure of 10,000 suspects were interviewed over four years during the course of this investigation. They just couldn't find the guy. They could not find this killer. And the press kind of almost gleefully kept pointing that out.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Right. So this is in a way, attempt to assuage them and bring them into the inner circle a bit.

• 29:07Josh Clark?

  Right. That was my impression, yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  All right. So the police are, they've got these undercover guys working their scene. They're checking cars randomly at all hours. They're canvassing laundromats and places where you wash your clothes. So, you know, if there are people like trying to get bloodstains out of something, they're kind of doing everything they can at this point. And this is where the Coen Brothers sort of moment comes in, which is in Sandusky, a dog, and Sandusky's about, now it's about an hour or 10 minutes away by car. I don't know what it would have been back then, but probably less than two hours, I would say, even in an old timey car. A dog shows up in Sandusky with a human leg in its mouth. I want to say that literally happened in a Coen Brothers movie.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  It might have just been a bone of a body. But I can't think of which one it might be. Someone will, someone will write in and tell us, but.

• 30:00Josh Clark?

  It sounds like a Barton Fink kind of thing.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  It is, but it's not. Or I might be thinking of the kids who ripped the toupee off the guy in Miller's Crossing.

• 30:11Josh Clark?

  Oh, I don't remember that part. Although I remember one of the neighbors lost his toupee in the burbs and they thought it was evidence of his murder.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  There's definitely a movie, it might not have been Coen Brothers, where a dog shows up with a body part in its mouth. Probably more than one movie. But this dog shows up in its mouth and Morello goes to Sandusky. And it turns out that the leg was actually surgically removed during a, during a real surgery, not a, not a serial killer surgery. And just didn't get disposed of right, ended up in the lake, ended up in the dog's mouth.

• 30:44Josh Clark?

  Right, but the police were so hyped up in Cleveland at the time that they traveled Sandusky to chase down this lead, which like all the other ones went absolutely nowhere. And so there was, again, like just a tremendous amount of public pressure, including something you mentioned earlier too, a lot of allegations and accusations that the police weren't doing enough because these people were not wealthy, were not well thought of, they were, you know, very poor. The poorest of the poor during the Great Depression were the ones who were having, who were suffering this serial killer. And so there was a tremendous

• 31:22Josh Clark?

  amount of pressure. And I think, my impression is, is that that pressure is one of the, I guess the thing that drove Elliot Ness to do something really terrible. Because the killer was picking from the shanty towns of Kingsbury Run, Elliot Ness got it in his head that if you did away with Kingsbury Run, you'd do away with the killings.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:46Josh Clark?

  And so he raided the homeless camps at Kingsbury Run and roused at everybody, and then ordered the place burned to the ground.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I'm sure he thought this was a great idea at the time, but he really didn't think it through because the people of Cleveland did not take kindly to that. They hated him for what he did, and this was during the Depression, and everyone was struggling basically, or not everyone, but most people were struggling at this point. Unemployment rate of 20% in Cleveland. And so the idea of this big shot Chicago G-Man coming in and basically running these homeless people out of their only option and burning it to the ground was not a good look at all. However, it-

• 32:34Speaker 02

  There were no more murders after that.

• 32:36Josh Clark?

  I know. Strangely, it seemed to have worked. And it depends, we'll talk more about, you know, a lot of different views of whether the murder stopped or not. But as far as canonical victims go,

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:48Josh Clark?

  This, this, he burned the place to the ground. Two days after, victims 11 and 12 were found. And after that, there were no more victims. So it didn't solve the murders by any stretch of the imagination, but it seemed to have put an end to them, weirdly.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think before we take a break, we should mention there was one, and get into the, who we think is probably the real suspect. There was one suspect in Cuyahoga County that the sheriff brought in. Name, he was a bricklayer named Frank Dozile, who did confess. He was brought in for the murder of Flo Palillo originally, because he'd lived with her for a little while. But supposedly, he knew Rose Wallace and Edward Andressi as well. But then they looked into it and it, by all accounts, that confession was,

• 33:36Speaker 02

  not just induced, but in the days where you would literally beat a victim into confessing.

• 33:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and then murder him in his cell after he recanted his confession.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  So was he murdered?

• 33:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, he, he hung himself, but he hung himself from a hook that was shorter than he was.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of those deals.

• 33:54Josh Clark?

  I guess if you really, really want to die, you might, you, you could do that. You could overcome the, um, the, um,

• 34:01Speaker 02

  The urge to stand up?

• 34:02Josh Clark?

  Disinclination towards self-harm, I guess you'd put it.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:05Josh Clark?

  But, uh, his, his friends at the time seemed to be like, no, he, he was murdered. So it's, at the very least, his confession was beaten out of him. And no, no serious scholar of the crime believes that Frank Dozile was, was the killer. He didn't have any, there was no evidence whatsoever, any kind of surgical knowledge. There was like a lot of boxes he just didn't check. It was basically, uh, he knew Flo, and he may have known Edward Androssi, and he may have known Rose Wallace. And the sheriff basically ran him in very publicly.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Right. All right. So let's take that break. And then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about the investigation and who people now believe committed these horrible murders, right after this.

• 35:11Josh Clark?

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• 35:28Speaker 02

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• 35:43Josh Clark?

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• 35:56Speaker 02

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• 36:18Josh Clark?

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• 36:34Speaker 02

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• 36:50Josh Clark?

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• 37:02Speaker 02

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• 37:16Josh Clark?

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• 38:07Speaker 02

  All right. So Elliot Ness has run everyone out of the Kingsbury Run camps, did not go over well. He then says, here's what we'll do. Let's skirt the warrant rules so we don't have to require warrants. And let's get together, since I'm the safety director and I control the fire department too, let's get, let's go around and start searching for, quote, "fire code violations," end quote. Basically, so they don't have to get any kind of warrants. And they can just basically go into people's houses and, and just at will and search and do whatever they want to under the guise of searching for fire code violations. He was desperate.

• 38:47Josh Clark?

  He was very desperate. And again, they were looking not just for the killer, but really, more than anything, they were looking for that grisly workshop, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer had put it, a place where he was, you know, draining the victims of their blood and dismembering their bodies. They didn't turn anything up. But it really kind of goes to show like just what lengths Elliot Ness, who was considered like this squeaky clean lawman, was willing to go to. This is extraordinarily unconstitutional and underhanded. And he, he went, he went to that, that degree. And well beyond, it turned out, actually, too.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Very much. And I think we're at the point now where we can talk about this mystery person, right?

• 39:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this is, this is why I said he went way beyond, you know, unlawful search of homes. He actually engaged in what amounts to kidnapping of a private citizen who he thought was the killer.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he kept it very secret. He even used a pseudonym for this person. He called this person, this gentleman Gaylord Sundheim. Pretty good name, a good hotel check-in name.

• 39:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  And privately, you know, word gets around a little bit what's going on, but privately, he would describe this person as an alcoholic, maybe bisexual, a doctor who came from a wealthy family and who had a relative in Congress who was protecting this person.

• 40:12Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  And took this man under the dark of night to a hotel room in Cleveland, held there without charging him for two weeks where they interrogated this person.

• 40:24Josh Clark?

  Yes, and apparently the guy who, this Gaylord Sundheim, was in the middle of a bender when he was picked up. And he had, he was so profoundly drunk that it took him three days to become sober again.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  I don't buy that.

• 40:39Josh Clark?

  I know, but when he, when he did, I know, but you gotta add those two.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 40:45Josh Clark?

  Thank you for keeping it, keeping it even keel, though.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  I mean, I've had nights that were a little rough, and you're always okay the next day.

• 40:53Josh Clark?

  I, I don't know what you're talking about. It's so weird. Like, alcohol affects us so differently, man. I can have like, a drink and a half these days, and I'm like, hating life the next day.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm not talking about a hangover, but you're not still drunk the next day.

• 41:09Josh Clark?

  Oh, gotcha.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Or in two days or three days.

• 41:12Josh Clark?

  I think that's what they were saying, is that this guy was, he had like, a hangover stupor, basically, that lasted for three days.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  I could buy that, then.

• 41:19Josh Clark?

  That was my impression.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  All right.

• 41:21Josh Clark?

  Not that he was still just flying high, but that he was just hating it.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  All right. I should have shut up about the whole thing.

• 41:27Josh Clark?

  But regardless, they kept him, whether he was sober as a judge, or, you know, drunk as a skunk when they picked him up, they held him in this hotel room without charge and outside of the legal system for two weeks and interrogated him for up to eight hours a day.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think he did it, so who cares?

• 41:44Josh Clark?

  That's exactly how Elliot Ness was approaching this. And again, everybody thought he was this squeaky clean lawman and he's engaged in kidnapping. But the thing is, he brought in the guy who was one of the early inventors of the polygraph. He invented the Keeler polygraph. And it was called that because his name was Leonard Keeler. And I think he brought him from Chicago. And Leonard Keeler administered a couple of different polygraph tests to this Gaylord Sondheim and said, "If this isn't your man, I might as well throw my machine out the window if I say anything else because that guy, that's the guy. It's definitely the guy." You gotta take that with a grain of salt because especially today, polygraphs are just total junk science.

• 42:26Josh Clark?

  But it certainly confirmed Ness's suspicions that much more at the time.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  I think that polygraph back then was, there wasn't even a machine. Keeler would just sit there and look for a bead of sweat to break out on the forehead, then punch the guy if it did.

• 42:39Josh Clark?

  That's right, exactly.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  So, the case was never solved. Ness's reputation obviously took a big hit. He eventually got out of Cleveland after a drunk driving hit and run accident that he was involved with and tried to cover up. So he left in great shame. But back to this Gaylord Sondheim. Later on, many years later, there were crime investigators and writers who put two and two together and basically identified, and in fact, in one case, crime writer Marilyn Bardsley came out and said, "Yeah, this is who this person was." It was a former World War I Army medic who was discharged for mental instability following

• 43:24Speaker 02

  head trauma, which was big warning lights going off. And he was an alcoholic, another big warning light. And his name was Francis Edward Sweeney, who also happens to have a relative in Congress.

• 43:37Josh Clark?

  Right, a guy named Representative Martin Sweeney, who was a huge critic of the Burton administration, of which Elliot Ness was a major part. And he was just the kind of guy who was a political opponent to the degree that I'm sure Elliot Ness thought, if he tried to arrest Clarence or Francis Sweeney, he would be obstructed, you know, from up on high by this congressperson. Whether he would have or not, I don't know. I saw some references to the idea that Martin Sweeney was well aware that Elliot Ness was looking at his cousin for this and was already getting in the way. But I only saw that in one place, so I'm not sure if that's the case or not.

• 44:20Josh Clark?

  Either way, his presence and his connection to Francis Sweeney was enough that Elliot Ness never charged Francis Sweeney, despite apparently going to his grave believing that Dr. Francis Edward Sweeney was the Cleveland torso murderer.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Have you seen a picture of the guy?

• 44:36Josh Clark?

  Dude.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  He looks like the definition of a torso murderer.

• 44:39Josh Clark?

  If you, like, seriously, you have to be careful with that stuff.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  I know, of course.

• 44:44Josh Clark?

  Especially if you ever end up a juror. You can't be like, "You look like a killer, but this guy looks like a torso murderer." You're exactly right.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  A quick sidebar. Not sure if I ever mentioned it on this show. I know I've talked about it on Movie Crush, but I want to recommend this great, great documentary. And forgive me if I'm repeating myself here, but it's called Crazy, Not Insane. It's an HBO documentary about this Dr. Dorothy Ottenow Lewis, who basically spent her life trying to understand serial killers. And one of the main... She was kind of one of the first people to really try and understand what's actually going on. And she put together, I think, like, three very common commonalities among serial killers. But one of them is head trauma. And that's why this really stands out to me about Francis Edward Sweeney, was that he was discharged from the Army

• 45:35Speaker 02

  because of head trauma, leading to mental instability. It's a commonality in most serial killers, is some sort of head trauma, especially when you're younger.

• 45:44Josh Clark?

  Wow, that's interesting. I did not know that.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the, um, I may have, I thought I talked about on this, but it was, uh, the, uh, who was the guy in LA that, that also just had a great docu-series on the night stalker, Richard Ramirez? He suffered multiple head traumas when he was younger as well. So I think it's, it's, I can't remember the third one. It's head trauma, some sort of physical, uh, and even sexual abuse as a child. And then there was like one more thing, and those are like, that's just a recipe for ending up some sort of sociopath or serial killer.

• 46:18Josh Clark?

  I think the third one is disappointing birthday presents.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe so.

• 46:22Josh Clark?

  Be warned, parents.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  It's a great, you'd really love it. It's a really good documentary.

• 46:27Josh Clark?

  Um, yeah, I'll check that out for sure. It sounds like it's totally in my alley. I'm actually agog that I've not heard of it.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Don't be agog.

• 46:34Josh Clark?

  I'm, I'm a little agog.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  All right, come back.

• 46:37Josh Clark?

  So, like you said, Marilyn Bardsley confirmed from one of the investigators that Francis Sweeney was Gaylord Sonheim. But that does not mean that Francis Sweeney was the torso murderer.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  True.

• 46:50Josh Clark?

  Although, again, like you were saying, if you look at a picture of Francis Sweeney, you're like, that's totally the torso murderer.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Well, and other stuff, you know, the head trauma, the medical training, he was a surgeon in residence at St. Alexis Hospital. His career deteriorated because of his drinking.

• 47:06Josh Clark?

  Right around the time the first murderer victims started showing up, too.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, he also had a deal, apparently, with a local, uh, mortuary where they would give him bodies to practice surgery on, which would explain maybe the, the kill room or the dismemberment room. He would have a place to go, uh, and dispose of these bodies without, you know, there being a big blood trail, you know?

• 47:30Josh Clark?

  Right. I mean, this is a place where it wouldn't seem weird that somebody was decapitating a body or draining the body of all of its blood. Like, that's exactly the kind of place. And that didn't turn up until years later, and it was thanks to a, a guy named James Baddal, who's written some books on it, um, on the torso murderers. And he interviewed, uh, one of the, one of the early investigators and found out that he had privileges at that funeral home and started to put two and two together.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was one, a couple of other things. Um, he did send taunting letters to Elliot Ness for years.

• 48:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Uh, some, one of them was signed, uh, F E Sweeney Paranoidal Nemesis.

• 48:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  But was this after he had been kidnapped by Ness?

• 48:15Josh Clark?

  Yes. So he knew Ness by this time and he also didn't say like, I did it. You didn't catch me anything like that. I get the impression it was more like, you didn't catch the guy. You're terrible at this.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:26Josh Clark?

  Everybody hates you. But it's still taunting stuff. But yes, this would have been after he was kidnapped. Cause this was up into like the forties.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. Uh, and then I think to me, one of the biggest, uh, red flags pointing in the direction of Sweeney is, I mentioned a near victim earlier in the episode. This was a transient. His name was, uh, Emile Frohneck and he was living in Cleveland in 34. And one day he was lured into a doctor's office on the second floor along Broadway Avenue. And the doctor said, here, I'll give you some shoes and a meal. If you come up here. Frohneck goes up, eats a little bit of the meal, starts to feel lightheaded and bolts and makes it to a train car and

• 49:09Josh Clark?

  Very wise.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Basically passes out for three days. And then later on, I think in 1938 was being interviewed after the cops here about this. Old Morello goes to pick him up and they narrow down the area to 50th to 55th streets along Broadway. Where, uh, Sweeney had a doctor's office.

• 49:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah. He couldn't specifically say that was the place where it happened.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:32Josh Clark?

  And that, that, uh, author James Bedal says that he thinks he came in the back way rather than the front way where they were showing him. Um, and, but he did say that's, he had an office right there, right around that area. So, uh, and he was there at the time. So, I mean, that's some pretty serious circumstantial stuff.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 49:51Josh Clark?

  But the thing is there's no smoking gun. There's no, anything that says definitively, and we probably will never have anything definitively. It says it's Francis Sweeney.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 50:01Josh Clark?

  So we've kind of reached this point, this plateau where it's like, you just basically choose a side either, you know, it's Francis Sweeney or it wasn't. And some people who say, no, I don't think it was Francis Sweeney. Makes some pretty good cases. Um. There were other similar murders in the area, starting in the 20s and going into the 50s, that really bore a lot of resemblance to the torso murders. And then other people say, okay, I feel the opposite of that, where there's, like, I don't think Rose Wallace was one of the victims. I think there were multiple killers doing similar-ish stuff, maybe copycats even, and that it wasn't all just one person.

• 50:45Josh Clark?

  There's, there's, there is, and there's probably always going to be a lot of competing theories about what, you know, who was responsible.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, the one theory that it wasn't him that I don't buy, did you say where he was living in Sandusky?

• 51:00Josh Clark?

  No, huh.

• 51:01Speaker 02

  All right, so here's the deal. He, Francis Sweeney, was apparently enrolled or checked into the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Sandusky, which I guess is an old, like a veterans' home, right?

• 51:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, I think, yes.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  So that's what it seems like. So he was checked in there, and one of the reasons that people say he didn't do it was because he was checked in in this place in Sandusky, like, a couple hours away, and I just don't buy that. They later came out and said, you know, they could come and go as they pleased. He could easily have, if he didn't want to get caught, be committing these murders in Cleveland and then going back to Sandusky as well.

• 51:38Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah, because he was there voluntarily, so he would not have been watched or monitored, or they wouldn't have kept tabs on him.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:48Josh Clark?

  And when they figured this out, it was years later, so no one would have been able to recall where he was or wasn't on a certain day, you know?

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's Sweeney.

• 51:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think there's a pretty chance it's Sweeney, too. But there's so, there were other murders in the area that, you know, it could have still been Sweeney, too. Some people connect the Black Dahlia murder to it, because there was a taunting note that the cops got in 1938 that said, "The cops can rest easy because the killers moved to sunny California." But if you look at the Black Dahlia murder, there's really not a lot of resemblance between the two. The MOs are really rather different, so that's probably not the case.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 52:27Josh Clark?

  Well, if you want to know more about the Cleveland torso murders, there's a whole rabbit hole on the internet and in books, including one by James Bedal and another by Marilyn Bardsley, that you can follow. And if you do, good luck with that. Since I said, "Good luck with that," it's time for listener mail.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this, "We did not help out this gentleman."

• 52:52Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  "Hey, guys. Love the podcast. I've been listening for the past several years. I've almost gotten through the whole library. Has some left from 2018, apparently. I work as a musical instrument repair technician at a local university independently in Greensboro, North Carolina. So I usually listen while I work on repadding clarinets and cleaning tubas."

• 53:13Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Cool job. Anyway, I was listening to your show this evening on Korean fan death. Remember that?

• 53:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  We talked about it. I don't think it was all about that, but it was...

• 53:23Josh Clark?

  It was a short stuff about it.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  Was it?

• 53:26Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Okay. I remember that being like a top 10 or something. Anyway, I immediately thought, "Finally, a way that I can find some legit reason for getting rid of the fan in our room. My fiancee Abby loves having a fan and that noise when you go to sleep. It's something I can deal with, but honestly, I do not care for it. So when I finally got home, I told Abby, 'Hey, we got a serious episode. Stuff you should know we should listen to.' I started the episode without pre-screening and trusted you guys would pull through for me. Needless to say, an interesting episode, but I did not get the confirmation bias I was looking for. Instead, we had a good laugh and a great evening. Looking forward to getting the book. Wish you guys the best and looking forward to many more." And that is from John Goodman.

• 54:08Josh Clark?

  Holy cow, John Goodman. We love you and the Coen Brothers stuff.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  His name's John Goodman. I'm gonna plug his business, Goodman Custom Woodwinds. If you're in the Greensboro, North Carolina area, and you need that clarinet repadded, go to John Goodman.

• 54:21Josh Clark?

  For sure. And even if you're not, it's probably worth the drive, right?

• 54:25Speaker 02

  I mean, where else are you gonna do it? Charlotte?

• 54:27Josh Clark?

  I don't... Yeah. Come on.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Heck, no.

• 54:30Josh Clark?

  Well, thanks a lot, John Goodman. We appreciate that. Sorry, we couldn't help you out, but at least you enjoyed the episode. And ultimately, isn't that what counts?

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 54:39Josh Clark?

  If you want to get in touch with us like John Goodman did, you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 54:49Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 55:05Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Introducing Voices of Vivart. Vivart is also known as its generic name, Fgart Tigamod Alpha F Cab, and this new show features firsthand stories from people living with a rare disease.

• 55:47Josh Clark?

  Hosted by Andrew Strattan, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivart. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious people ask great questions, and here's one. What's something you wish there was an app for? Well, with Base44, you can build it yourself. Maybe it's a tool to organize a project, or track a hobby, or share knowledge, or solve a problem that's always bugged you. Just describe what you want in your own words, no coding required. Base44 handles the database, login, backend, and hosting.

• 56:31Josh Clark?

  Try it for free. Go to base44.com to get started.

• 56:35Speaker 03

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.